logging
Batek Illness Becomes Deadly
Back in early April, reports came out about a mysterious illness that was afflicting the Batek of Kuala Koh: some young people were becoming sick and having breathing problems. The state health authorities in Kelantan attempted to provide cover for themselves by blaming the Batek for not being willing to take transportation to clinics to […]
Mbuti Struggle and Survive
According to the closing credits of a six-minute video posted to YouTube last week, the marvelous footage of an Mbuti community suffering from discrimination in the Eastern Congo was prepared by the Survival Media Agency. The beauty of the scenery—and of the Mbuti people themselves—recommends the production but it is worth summarizing its factual points […]
A Malaysian Newspaper Revisits a Batek Village
Last week, Utusan Online, a Malaysian news service, made a return trip to a Batek community that the paper had visited a year ago while reporting on logging in the nearby forest. The story published last week is an update to the three articles carried by the paper in January 2014. Many of the Batek […]
Batek Suffering from Logging
A Malaysian newspaper published a series of three articles early last week analyzing the harm that rampaging logging is causing to the Batek people. They live on the fringes of the world famous Taman Negara National Park in northern Peninsular Malaysia, which also is being impacted by the lumbering activities. Using the Google translation service, […]
DR Congo Cancels Logging Concessions
While the capture last Thursday night of Laurent Nkunda, commander of a rebellious army in eastern Congo, raised hopes for peace in that troubled country, a more important story was unfolding in Kinshasa, the capital city. The government has cancelled 91 logging concessions in that nation’s vast rainforests, nearly two-thirds of the Congo’s total. A […]
Semai Forest Preserved Temporarily from Logging
Spectacular Rafflesia flowers and Rajah Brooke Birdwing butterflies are among the highlights of a Semai nature reserve in Perak State, Malaysia, that has faced the threat of logging for years. Last week, the state government issued a stop-work order to prevent any more logging, at least temporarily, in the vicinity of the Bukit Kinta Forest […]
Controls on Logging and Warfare May Help the Mbuti
Two very different conflicts that have prevented the Mbuti from living safely in their forest homes in the Eastern Congo came to a head during January. Three weeks ago the World Bank admitted—after a fashion—the long-standing error of its ways in fostering the savage devastation of the nation’s forests. Last week the major actors directing […]
The Indigenous People of the Congo and the World Bank
The campaign by the Mbuti and the other indigenous societies of the D.R. Congo against destructive logging that is supported by the World Bank is again gaining attention in the news. The Financial Times reported last Friday it had obtained a copy of a new World Bank document, which is defensive of the Bank’s record […]
Mbuti Press their Case in Washington
The indigenous peoples of eastern Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), including the Mbuti, have taken their forest preservation campaign directly to the headquarters of the World Bank in Washington. Supported by the Rainforest Foundation and Greenpeace, the leaders of three indigenous organizations in the DRC flew to Washington last week to attend the annual meeting […]
World Bank Report May Help the Mbuti
An internal investigative panel within the World Bank has just prepared a stinging indictment of the industrial logging the Bank is supporting in the Democratic Republic of Congo. The damning report prepared by the bank’s Inspection Panel, due to be discussed shortly by the board of the Bank, was leaked on Wednesday last week to […]
